From the Brownstone Institute

By  Bill Rice  

How many genuine, shocking – and unexposed – scandals actually occurred in the last four years?  To partially answer this question, I composed another of my List Columns.

The Most Epic of Scandals Might Be…

The world’s most epic scandal might be the massive number of citizens who’ve died prematurely in the last four years. This scandal could also be expressed as the vast number of people whose deaths were falsely attributed to Covid.

My main areas of focus – “early spread” – informed my thinking when I reached this stunning conclusion:  Almost every former living person said to have died “from Covid” probably did not die from Covid.

The scandal is that (unreported) “democide” occurred, meaning that government policies and deadly healthcare “guidance” more plausibly explain the millions of excess deaths that have occurred since late March 2020.

My research into early spread suggests that the real Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) of Covid should have already been known by the lockdowns of mid-March 2020.

If, as I believe, many millions of world citizens had already contracted this virus and had not died, the Covid IFR would be the same, or perhaps even lower, than the IFR for the common flu – said to be 1 death per 1,000 infections (0.1 percent).

Expressed differently, almost 100 percent of people who contracted this virus did not die from it – a fact which could and should have been known early in the “pandemic.” The fact this information was concealed from the public qualifies as a massive scandal.

Evidence That Would ‘Prove’ This Scandal

Furthermore, one does not need early spread “conjecture” to reach the conclusion that only a minute number of people who were infected by this virus later died from Covid.

After April 2020, a researcher could pick any large group or organization and simply ascertain how many people in these groups later died “from Covid.”

For example, more than 10,000 employees work for the CDC. About 10 months ago, I sent an email to the CDC and asked their media affairs department how many of the CDC’s own employees have died from Covid in the past three-plus years.

This question – which would be easy to answer – was never answered. This example of non-transparency is, to me,  a massive “tell” and should be “scandalous.”

To be more precise, if the CDC could document that, say, 10 of their employees had died from Covid, this would equate to a disease with a mortality risk identical to the flu.

My strong suspicion is that fewer than 10 CDC employees have died from Covid in the last four years, which would mean the CDC knows from its own large sample group that Covid is/was not more deadly than influenza.

I’ve performed the same extrapolations with other groups made up of citizens whose Covid deaths would have made headlines.

For example, hundreds of thousands if not millions of high school, college, and pro athletes must have contracted Covid by today’s date. However, it is a challenge to find one definitive case of a college or pro athlete who died from Covid.

For young athletes – roughly ages 14 to 40 – the Covid IFR is either 0.0000 percent or very close to this microscopic fraction.

One question that should be obvious given the “athlete” example is why would any athlete want or need an experimental new mRNA “vaccine” when there’s a zero-percent chance this disease would ever kill this person?

The scandal is that sports authorities – uncritically accepting “guidance” from public health officials – either mandated or strongly encouraged (via coercion) that every athlete in the world receive Covid shots and then, later, booster shots.

Of course, the fact these shots would be far more likely to produce death or serious adverse events than a bout with Covid should be a massive scandal.

More Scandals

Needless to say, all the major pediatrician groups issued the same guidance for children.

In Pike County, Alabama, I can report that in four years no child/student between the ages of 5 and 18 has died from Covid.

I also recognize that the authorized  “fact” is that millions of Americans have now “died from Covid.” However, I believe this figure is a scandalous lie, one supported by PCR test results that would be questioned in a world where investigating certain scandals was not taboo.

Yet another scandal is that officials and the press de-emphasized the fact the vast majority of alleged victims were over the age of 79, had multiple comorbid conditions, were often nursing home residents, and, among the non-elderly, came from the poorest sections of society.

These revelations – which would not advance the desired narrative that everyone should be very afraid – are similar to many great scandals that have been exposed from time to time in history.

Namely, officials in positions of power and trust clearly conspired to cover up or conceal information that would have exposed their own malfeasance, professional incompetence, and/or graft.

This Might Be the No. 1 Scandal of Our Times

As I’ve written ad nauseam, perhaps the most stunning scandal of our times is that all-important “truth-seeking” organizations have become completely captured.

At the top of this list are members of the so-called Fourth Estate or “watchdog” press (at least in the corporate or “mainstream” media).

In previous articles, I’ve estimated that at least 40,000 Americans work as full-time journalists or editors for mainstream “news organizations.” Hundreds of MSM news-gathering organizations “serve” their readers and viewers.

In this very large group, I can’t think of one journalist, editor, publisher, or news organization who endeavored to expose any of the dubious claims of the public health establishment.

When 100 percent of professionals charged with exposing scandals are themselves working to conceal shocking revelations…this too should qualify as a massive scandal.

To the above “captured classes” one could add college professors and administrators, 99 percent of plaintiffs’ trial lawyers, 100 percent of CEOs of major corporations, almost all elected politicians, and, with the exception of perhaps Sweden, every one of the public health agencies in the world, plus all major medical groups and prestigious science journals.

Or This Might Be Our Greatest Scandal

Yet another scandal – perhaps the most sinister of them all – would be the coordinated conspiracy to silence, muffle, intimidate, bully, cancel, demonetize, and stigmatize the classes of brave and intelligent dissidents who have attempted to reveal a litany of shocking truths.

The Censorship Industrial Complex (CIC) is not a figment of a conspiracy theorist’s imagination.

The CIC is as real as Media Matters, News Guard, The Trusted News Initiative, the Stanford Virality Project, and the 15,000-plus “content moderators” who probably still work for Facebook.

Government officials in myriad agencies of “President” Joe Biden’s administration constantly pressured social media companies to censor content that didn’t fit the authorized narrative (although these bullying projects didn’t require much arm-twisting).

Here, the scandal is that the country’s “adults in the room” were identified as grave threats to the agenda of the Powers that Be and were targeted for extreme censorship and punishment.

When people and organizations principled enough to try to expose scandals are targeted by the State and the State’s crony partners, this guarantees future scandals are unlikely to be exposed…which means the same unexposed leaders are going to continue to inflict even greater harm on the world population.

This Scandal Is Hard to Quantify

Other scandals are more difficult to quantify. For example, it’s impossible to know how many citizens now “self-censor” because they know the topics they should not discuss outside of conversations with close friends.

This point perhaps illustrates the state of the world’s “New Normal” – a now-accepted term that is scandalous if one simply thinks about the predicates of this modifier.

It should be a scandal that the vast majority of world citizens now eagerly submit to or comply with the dictates and speech parameters imposed on them by the world’s leadership classes.

The “New Normal” connotes that one should accept increasing assaults on previously sacrosanct civil liberties.

What is considered “normal” – and should now be accepted without protest – was, somehow, changed.

As I routinely write, what the world has lived through the past four-plus years is, in fact, a New Abnormal.

This Orwellian change of definition would qualify as a shocking scandal except for the fact most people now self-censor to remain in the perceived safety of their social and workplace herds.

The bottom line – a sad one – might be that none of the above scandals would have been possible if more members of the public had been capable of critical thinking and exhibited a modicum of civic courage.

As it turns out, the exposure of scandals would require large numbers of citizens to look into the mirror (or their souls) and perform self-analysis, an exercise in introspection that would not be pain-free.

It’s also a scandal our leaders knew they could manipulate the masses so easily.

Considering all of these points, it seems to me that the captured leadership classes must have known that the vast majority of the population would trust the veracity of their claims and policy prescriptions.

That is, they knew there would be no great pushback from “the masses.”

If the above observation isn’t a scandal, it’s depressing to admit or acknowledge this is what happened.

To End on a Hopeful Note

What gives millions of citizens hope is that, belatedly, more citizens might be growing weary of living in a world where every scandal cannot be exposed.

Donald Trump winning a presidential election by margins “too big to steal” is a sign of national hope.

Mr. Trump nominating RFK, Jr. to supervise the CDC, NIH, and FDA is definitely a sign of hope, an appointment that must outrage and terrify the world’s previous leadership classes.

For far too long, America’s greatest scandal has been that no important scandals can be exposed. Today, however, it seems possible this state of affairs might not remain our New Normal forever.

Republished from the author’s Substack

Author

Bill Rice

Bill Rice, Jr. is a freelance journalist in Troy, Alabama.

From LifeSiteNews

By Calvin Freiburger

Biden Health & Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra signed an extension of COVID-19 related liability shields until 2029, ahead of Joe Biden’s departure from the White House, and Donald Trump’s administration may be unable to reverse it.

U.S. Health & Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra has signed an extension of COVID-19 related liability shields until 2029, ahead of President Joe Biden’s departure from the White House.

Near the beginning of the 2020 COVID outbreak, the first Trump administration invoked the federal Public Readiness & Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act of 2005 to declare the virus a “public health emergency.”

According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the PREP Act empowers the federal government to “limit legal liability for losses relating to the administration of medical countermeasures such as diagnostics, treatments, and vaccines.” Under this “sweeping” immunity, the federal government, state governments, “manufacturers and distributors of covered countermeasures,” and licensed or otherwise-authorized health professionals distributing those “countermeasures” are shielded from “all claims of loss” stemming from them, with the exception of “death or serious physical injury” brought about through “willful misconduct,” a standard that, among other hurdles, requires the offender to have acted “intentionally to achieve a wrongful purpose.”

The protection has faced criticism for preventing Big Pharma and various medical institutions from being held accountable for measures that did more harm than good. But on December 11, Becerra issued an amendment to “extend the time period of PREP Act coverage through December 31, 2029. COVID-19 continues to present a credible risk of a future public health emergency,” he claimed.

The amendment “includes extending the time period for PREP Act coverage for licensed pharmacists, pharmacy interns, and qualified technicians, which allows for continued access by the recipient Population to Covered Countermeasures that are COVID-19 vaccines, seasonal influenza vaccines and COVID-19 tests.”

“As qualified persons, these licensed pharmacists, pharmacy interns, and qualified pharmacy technicians will be afforded liability protections in accordance with the PREP Act and the terms of this amended Declaration,” the statement adds. “To the extent that any State law would otherwise prohibit these healthcare professionals who are a ‘qualified person’ from prescribing, dispensing, or administering Covered Countermeasures that are COVID-19 vaccines, seasonal influenza vaccines or COVID-19 tests, such law is preempted.”

The Daily Mail notes that the move means pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and Moderna would be shielded from lawsuits over the harm of their mRNA-based COVID shots for another five years.

More significantly, the incoming Trump administration might be powerless to rescind the extension, according to attorney Ray Flores: “The Pfizer and Moderna [COVID shot] contracts guarantee that these manufacturers are protected by the PREP Act. If the emergency ends, then vaccines already in distribution, if administered, could trigger manufacturer liability.”

A large body of evidence identifies serious risks to the COVID shots, which were developed and reviewed in a fraction of the time vaccines usually take under the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed initiative.

An analysis of 99 million people across eight countries published February in the journal Vaccine “observed significantly higher risks of myocarditis following the first, second and third doses” of mRNA-based COVID shots, as well as signs of increased risk of “pericarditis, Guillain-Barré syndrome, and cerebral venous sinus thrombosis,” and other “potential safety signals that require further investigation.” In April, the CDC was forced to release by court order 780,000 previously undisclosed reports of serious adverse reactions, and a study out of Japan found “statistically significant increases” in cancer deaths after third doses of mRNA-based COVID-19 jabs, and offered several theories for a causal link.

In Florida, an ongoing grand jury investigation into the shots’ manufacturers is slated to release a report on the safety and effectiveness of the COVID injections, and a lawsuit by the state of Kansas has been filed accusing Pfizer of misrepresentation for calling the shots “safe and effective.” The findings of both efforts are highly anticipated.

All eyes are currently on returning President Donald Trump and his health team, which will be helmed by prominent vaccine critic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his nominee for Secretary of Health & Human Services. They have given mixed signals as to the prospects of reconsidering the shots for which Trump has long taken credit, and he has nominated both critics and defenders of establishment COVID measures for a number of administration roles.